Deficiencies in cluster-2 ALA lipid flippases result in salicylic acid-dependent growth reductions.

P4 ATPases (i.e., lipid flippases) are eukaryotic enzymes that transport lipids across membrane bilayers. In plants, P4 ATPases are named Aminophospholipid ATPases (ALAs) and are organized into five phylogenetic clusters. Here we generated an Arabidopsis mutant lacking all five cluster-2 ALAs (ala8/9/10/11/12), which is the most highly expressed ALA subgroup in vegetative tissues. Plants harboring the quintuple knockout (KO) show rosettes that are 2.2-fold smaller and display chlorotic lesions. A similar but less severe phenotype was observed in an ala10/11 double KO. The growth and lesion phenotypes of ala8/9/10/11/12 mutants were reversed by expressing a NahG transgene, which encodes an enzyme that degrades salicylic acid (SA). A role for SA in promoting the lesion phenotype was further supported by quantitative PCR assays showing increased mRNA abundance for an SA-biosynthesis gene ISOCHORISMATE SYNTHASE 1 (ICS1) and two SA-responsive genes PATHOGENESIS-RELATED GENE 1 (PR1) and PR2. Lesion phenotypes were also reversed by growing plants in liquid media containing either low calcium (~0.1 mM) or high nitrogen concentrations (~24 mM), which are conditions known to suppress SA-dependent autoimmunity. Yeast-based fluorescent lipid uptake assays revealed that ALA10 and ALA11 display overlapping substrate specificities, including the transport of LysoPC signaling lipids. Together, these results establish that the biochemical functions of ALA8-12 are at least partially overlapping, and that deficiencies in cluster-2 ALAs result in an SA-dependent autoimmunity phenotype that has not been observed for flippase mutants with deficiencies in other ALA clusters.

The Lipid Flippases ALA4 and ALA5 Play Critical Roles in Cell Expansion and Plant Growth.

Aminophospholipid ATPases (ALAs) are lipid flippases involved in transporting specific lipids across membrane bilayers. Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) contains 12 ALAs in five phylogenetic clusters, including four in cluster 3 (ALA4-ALA7). ALA4/5 and ALA6/7, are expressed primarily in vegetative tissues and pollen, respectively. Previously, a double knockout of ALA6/7 was shown to result in pollen fertility defects. Here we show that a double knockout of ALA4/5 results in dwarfism, characterized by reduced growth in rosettes (6.5-fold), roots (4.3-fold), bolts (4.5-fold), and hypocotyls (2-fold). Reduced cell size was observed for multiple vegetative cell types, suggesting a role for ALA4/5 in cellular expansion. Members of the third ALA cluster are at least partially interchangeable, as transgenes expressing ALA6 in vegetative tissues partially rescued ala4/5 mutant phenotypes, and expression of ALA4 transgenes in pollen fully rescued ala6/7 mutant fertility defects. ALA4-GFP displayed plasma membrane and endomembrane localization patterns when imaged in both guard cells and pollen. Lipid profiling revealed ala4/5 rosettes had perturbations in glycerolipid and sphingolipid content. Assays in yeast revealed that ALA5 can flip a variety of glycerolipids and the sphingolipid sphingomyelin across membranes. These results support a model whereby the flippase activity of ALA4 and ALA5 impacts the homeostasis of both glycerolipids and sphingolipids and is important for cellular expansion during vegetative growth.

A bimodular mechanism of calcium control in eukaryotes.

Calcium ions (Ca(2+)) have an important role as secondary messengers in numerous signal transduction processes, and cells invest much energy in controlling and maintaining a steep gradient between intracellular (∼0.1-micromolar) and extracellular (∼2-millimolar) Ca(2+) concentrations. Calmodulin-stimulated calcium pumps, which include the plasma-membrane Ca(2+)-ATPases (PMCAs), are key regulators of intracellular Ca(2+) in eukaryotes. They contain a unique amino- or carboxy-terminal regulatory domain responsible for autoinhibition, and binding of calcium-loaded calmodulin to this domain releases autoinhibition and activates the pump. However, the structural basis for the activation mechanism is unknown and a key remaining question is how calmodulin-mediated PMCA regulation can cover both basal Ca(2+) levels in the nanomolar range as well as micromolar-range Ca(2+) transients generated by cell stimulation. Here we present an integrated study combining the determination of the high-resolution crystal structure of a PMCA regulatory-domain/calmodulin complex with in vivo characterization and biochemical, biophysical and bioinformatics data that provide mechanistic insights into a two-step PMCA activation mechanism mediated by calcium-loaded calmodulin. The structure shows the entire PMCA regulatory domain and reveals an unexpected 2:1 stoichiometry with two calcium-loaded calmodulin molecules binding to different sites on a long helix. A multifaceted characterization of the role of both sites leads to a general structural model for calmodulin-mediated regulation of PMCAs that allows stringent, highly responsive control of intracellular calcium in eukaryotes, making it possible to maintain a stable, basal level at a threshold Ca(2+) concentration, where steep activation occurs.

A cyclic nucleotide-gated channel (CNGC16) in pollen is critical for stress tolerance in pollen reproductive development.

Cyclic nucleotide-gated channels (CNGCs) have been implicated in diverse aspects of plant growth and development, including responses to biotic and abiotic stress, as well as pollen tube growth and fertility. Here, genetic evidence identifies CNGC16 in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) as critical for pollen fertility under conditions of heat stress and drought. Two independent transfer DNA disruptions of cngc16 resulted in a greater than 10-fold stress-dependent reduction in pollen fitness and seed set. This phenotype was fully rescued through pollen expression of a CNGC16 transgene, indicating that cngc16-1 and 16-2 were both loss-of-function null alleles. The most stress-sensitive period for cngc16 pollen was during germination and the initiation of pollen tube tip growth. Pollen viability assays indicate that mutant pollen are also hypersensitive to external calcium chloride, a phenomenon analogous to calcium chloride hypersensitivities observed in other cngc mutants. A heat stress was found to increase concentrations of 3',5'-cyclic guanyl monophosphate in both pollen and leaves, as detected using an antibody-binding assay. A quantitative PCR analysis indicates that cngc16 mutant pollen have attenuated expression of several heat-stress response genes, including two heat shock transcription factor genes, HsfA2 and HsfB1. Together, these results provide evidence for a heat stress response pathway in pollen that connects a cyclic nucleotide signal, a Ca(2+)-permeable ion channel, and a signaling network that activates a downstream transcriptional heat shock response.

Evolution and a revised nomenclature of P4 ATPases, a eukaryotic family of lipid flippases.

In all eukaryotic cells, P4 ATPases, also named phospholipid flippases, generate phospholipid asymmetry across biological membranes. This process is essential for cell survival, as it is required for vesicle budding and fusion in the secretory pathway. Several P4 ATPase isoforms can be identified in all sequenced eukaryotic genomes, but their evolution and interrelationships are poorly described. In this study, we conducted a thorough phylogenetic analysis of P4 ATPases in all major eukaryotic super-groups and found that they can be divided into three distinct families, P4A, P4B and P4C ATPases, all of which have an ancient origin. While P4B ATPases have been lost in plants, P4A ATPases are present in all eukaryotic super-groups. P4C ATPases form an intermediate group between the other two but appear to share a common origin with P4A ATPases. Sequence motifs unique to P4 ATPases are situated in the basal ATP hydrolyzing machinery. In addition, no clear signature motifs within P4 ATPase subgroups were found that could be related to lipid specificity, likely pointing to an elaborate transport mechanism in which different amino acid residue combinations in these pumps can result in recognition of the same substrate.

Transient Expression of P-type ATPases in Tobacco Epidermal Cells.

Transient expression in tobacco cells is a convenient method for several purposes such as analysis of protein-protein interactions and the subcellular localization of plant proteins. A suspension of Agrobacterium tumefaciens cells carrying the plasmid of interest is injected into the intracellular space between leaf epidermal cells, which results in DNA transfer from the bacteria to the plant and expression of the corresponding proteins. By injecting mixes of Agrobacterium strains, this system offers the possibility to co-express a number of target proteins simultaneously, thus allowing for example protein-protein interaction studies. In this chapter, we describe the procedure to transiently express P-type ATPases in tobacco epidermal cells, with focus on subcellular localization of the protein complexes formed by P4-ATPases and their ß-subunits.

A phospholipid uptake system in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana.

Plants use solar energy to produce lipids directly from inorganic elements and are not thought to require molecular systems for lipid uptake from the environment. Here we show that Arabidopsis thaliana Aminophospholipid ATPase10 (ALA10) is a P4-type ATPase flippase that internalizes exogenous phospholipids across the plasma membrane, after which they are rapidly metabolized. ALA10 expression and phospholipid uptake are high in the epidermal cells of the root tip and in guard cells, the latter of which regulate the size of stomatal apertures to modulate gas exchange. ALA10-knockout mutants exhibit reduced phospholipid uptake at the root tips and guard cells and are affected in growth and transpiration. The presence of a phospholipid uptake system in plants is surprising. Our results suggest that one possible physiological role of this system is to internalize lysophosphatidylcholine, a signalling lipid involved in root development and stomatal control.

Loss of the Arabidopsis thaliana P4-ATPase ALA3 reduces adaptability to temperature stresses and impairs vegetative, pollen, and ovule development.

Members of the P4 subfamily of P-type ATPases are thought to help create asymmetry in lipid bilayers by flipping specific lipids between the leaflets of a membrane. This asymmetry is believed to be central to the formation of vesicles in the secretory and endocytic pathways. In Arabidopsis thaliana, a P4-ATPase associated with the trans-Golgi network (ALA3) was previously reported to be important for vegetative growth and reproductive success. Here we show that multiple phenotypes for ala3 knockouts are sensitive to growth conditions. For example, ala3 rosette size was observed to be dependent upon both temperature and soil, and varied between 40% and 80% that of wild-type under different conditions. We also demonstrate that ala3 mutants have reduced fecundity resulting from a combination of decreased ovule production and pollen tube growth defects. In-vitro pollen tube growth assays showed that ala3 pollen germinated ∼2 h slower than wild-type and had approximately 2-fold reductions in both maximal growth rate and overall length. In genetic crosses under conditions of hot days and cold nights, pollen fitness was reduced by at least 90-fold; from ∼18% transmission efficiency (unstressed) to less than 0.2% (stressed). Together, these results support a model in which ALA3 functions to modify endomembranes in multiple cell types, enabling structural changes, or signaling functions that are critical in plants for normal development and adaptation to varied growth environments.

A putative plant aminophospholipid flippase, the Arabidopsis P4 ATPase ALA1, localizes to the plasma membrane following association with a ß-subunit.

Plasma membranes in eukaryotic cells display asymmetric lipid distributions with aminophospholipids concentrated in the inner leaflet and sphingolipids in the outer leaflet. This unequal distribution of lipids between leaflets is, amongst several proposed functions, hypothesized to be a prerequisite for endocytosis. P4 ATPases, belonging to the P-type ATPase superfamily of pumps, are involved in establishing lipid asymmetry across plasma membranes, but P4 ATPases have not been identified in plant plasma membranes. Here we report that the plant P4 ATPase ALA1, which previously has been connected with cold tolerance of Arabidopsis thaliana, is targeted to the plasma membrane and does so following association in the endoplasmic reticulum with an ALIS protein ß-subunit.

Intracellular targeting signals and lipid specificity determinants of the ALA/ALIS P4-ATPase complex reside in the catalytic ALA alpha-subunit.

Members of the P(4) subfamily of P-type ATPases are believed to catalyze flipping of phospholipids across cellular membranes, in this way contributing to vesicle biogenesis in the secretory and endocytic pathways. P(4)-ATPases form heteromeric complexes with Cdc50-like proteins, and it has been suggested that these act as beta-subunits in the P(4)-ATPase transport machinery. In this work, we investigated the role of Cdc50-like beta-subunits of P(4)-ATPases for targeting and function of P(4)-ATPase catalytic alpha-subunits. We show that the Arabidopsis P(4)-ATPases ALA2 and ALA3 gain functionality when coexpressed with any of three different ALIS Cdc50-like beta-subunits. However, the final cellular destination of P(4)-ATPases as well as their lipid substrate specificity are independent of the nature of the ALIS beta-subunit they were allowed to interact with.

A cyclic nucleotide-gated channel is essential for polarized tip growth of pollen.

Ion signals are critical to regulating polarized growth in many cell types, including pollen in plants and neurons in animals. Genetic evidence presented here indicates that pollen tube growth requires cyclic nucleotide-gated channel (CNGC) 18. CNGCs are nonspecific cation channels found in plants and animals and have well established functions in excitatory signal transduction events in animals. In Arabidopsis, male sterility was observed for two cngc18 null mutations. CNGC18 is expressed primarily in pollen, as indicated from a promoter::GUS (beta-glucuronidase) reporter analysis and expression profiling. The underlying cause of sterility was identified as a defect in pollen tube growth, resulting in tubes that were kinky, short, often thin, and unable to grow into the transmitting tract. Expression of a GFP-tagged CNGC18 in mutant pollen provided complementation and evidence for asymmetric localization of CNGC18 to the plasma membrane at the growing tip, starting at the time of pollen grain germination. Heterologous expression of CNGC18 in Escherichia coli resulted in a time- and concentration-dependent accumulation of more Ca2+. Thus, CNGC18 provides a mechanism to directly transduce a cyclic nucleotide (cNMP) signal into an ion flux that can produce a localized signal capable of regulating the pollen tip-growth machinery. These results identify a CNGC that is essential to an organism's life cycle and raise the possibility that CNGCs have a widespread role in regulating cell-growth dynamics in both plant and animals.

A systematic mutagenesis study of Ile-282 in transmembrane segment M4 of the plasma membrane H+-ATPase.

Homology models of plasma membrane H(+)-ATPase (Bukrinsky, J. T., Buch-Pedersen, M. J., Larsen, S., and Palmgren, M. G. (2001) FEBS Lett. 494, 6-10) has pointed to residues in transmembrane segment M4 as being important for proton translocation by P-type proton pumps. To test this model, alanine-scanning mutagenesis was carried out through 12 residues in the M4 of the plant plasma membrane H(+)-ATPase AHA2. An I282A mutation showed apparent reduced H(+) affinity, and this residue was subsequently substituted with all other naturally occurring amino acids by saturation mutagenesis. The ability of mutant enzymes to substitute for the yeast proton pump PMA1 was found to correlate with the size of the side chain rather than its chemical nature. Thus, smaller side chains (Gly, Ala, and Ser) at this position resulted in lower H(+) affinity and lowered levels of H(+) transport in vivo, whereas substitution with side chains of similar and larger size resulted in only minor effects. Substitutions of Ile-282 had only minor effects on ATP affinity and sensitivity toward vanadate, ruling out an indirect effect through changes in the enzyme conformational equilibrium. These results are consistent with a model in which the backbone carbonyl oxygen of Ile-282 contributes directly to proton translocation.

Pollen development and fertilization in Arabidopsis is dependent on the MALE GAMETOGENESIS IMPAIRED ANTHERS gene encoding a type V P-type ATPase.

In flowering plants, development of the haploid male gametophytes (pollen grains) takes place in a specialized structure called the anther. Successful pollen development, and thus reproduction, requires high secretory activity in both anther tissues and pollen. In this paper, we describe a novel member of the eukaryotic type V subfamily (P(5)) of P-type ATPase cation pumps, the MALE GAMETOGENESIS IMPAIRED ANTHERS (MIA) gene. MIA protein is highly abundant in the endoplasmic reticulum and small vesicles of developing pollen grains and tapetum cells. T-DNA insertional mutants of MIA suffer from imbalances in cation homeostasis and exhibit a severe reduction in fertility. Mutant microspores fail to separate from tetrads and pollen grains are fragile with an abnormal morphology and altered cell wall structure. Disruption of MIA affects expression of genes essential for secretion as well as a high number of genes encoding cell wall proteins and membrane transporters. MIA functionally complements a mutant in the P(5) ATPase homolog SPF1 from Saccharomyces cerevisiae, suggesting a common function for P(5) ATPases in single and multicellular organisms. Our results suggest that MIA is required in the secretory pathway for proper secretion of vesicle cargo to the plasma membrane.